Find a Tender vs Contracts Finder: What Trades Need to Know
Updated 4 November 2026
If you look for public-sector construction work in the UK, you will soon meet two government websites with similar names: Find a Tender and Contracts Finder. Add Public Contracts Scotland and Sell2Wales, and it can be hard to tell where you should be looking. This guide explains what each service is for and how they fit together, in plain English.
Find a Tender (FTS)
Find a Tender is the UK government's central service for public procurement notices. It was set up when the UK left the EU, replacing the EU's Official Journal for UK notices. Since the Procurement Act 2023 came into force on 24 February 2025, Find a Tender has become the main place where buyers in England, Wales and Northern Ireland publish notices for procurements run under the new rules. That includes planned procurements, live tenders, contract awards and notices about changes to contracts.
Find a Tender also holds supplier registration under the new regime. Suppliers bidding under the Act are asked to register and keep their core business information up to date there, so it can be shared with buyers instead of re-entered on every bid. If you plan to bid directly for public contracts, registering is worth doing early.
Contracts Finder
Contracts Finder is the older service, run for England, which was mainly used for lower-value contracts below the higher procurement thresholds. You will still see notices there, particularly for procurements that started under the old rules before February 2025, and some buyers continue to post there. For a trade business, that means it is still worth checking, but it is no longer the only place to find lower-value English work.
Public Contracts Scotland and Sell2Wales
Scotland has its own procurement rules and its own portal, Public Contracts Scotland, where Scottish councils, housing associations, health boards and other public bodies advertise. Most Scottish public-sector work is not covered by the Procurement Act 2023. Wales is covered by the Act for many purposes, but Welsh buyers also use Sell2Wales, the Welsh Government's portal, so Welsh opportunities can appear in both places.
Notices are not the full tender
Whichever service a notice appears on, it is usually only the advert. The actual tender documents, such as the specification, pricing schedule and questions, are often held on the buyer's own e-tendering portal. Councils use a range of portals, and you may need to register on each one to download documents and submit a bid. Allow time for this: registration can take a day or two to be approved on some systems.
What a notice tells you
A good notice will tell you the buyer, a description of the work, the location, the estimated value, the contract length, the deadline, and how to get the documents. Read the classification codes too. Public notices use CPV (Common Procurement Vocabulary) codes, which group work into categories such as roofing, electrical installation or building maintenance. Searching by these codes finds notices that keyword searches miss, because buyers do not always use the words a tradesperson would.
Why notices are hard to search
Buyers write titles in their own language. A job that a roofer would call a flat roof replacement might be titled "planned maintenance works lot 3" or "capital programme: envelope works". A sealant contract might be hidden inside a window or cladding package. That is why it pays to search by trade and by area rather than just keywords, and to read the descriptions of anything that looks close.
How Work for Trades fits in
Work for Trades checks Find a Tender, Contracts Finder and Public Contracts Scotland every few hours, and sorts construction and maintenance notices into 29 trades and by council and town. Each listing links back to the official notice, which is always the source to rely on. You can read more about where our data comes from. Browsing is free; the Pro plan sends you new matches for your trade and area.
Which one should a trade business check?
In practice, most trade firms need all of them, depending on where they work. A roofer based in Carlisle might win work from English councils on Find a Tender and from Scottish councils on Public Contracts Scotland. A firm in Newport could see Welsh notices on Sell2Wales and English ones over the border. Below-threshold English notices may appear on Find a Tender or, for older procurements, on Contracts Finder. The safest approach is to search by the area you cover rather than by portal, and to treat every portal as one source among several.
Frameworks and dynamic markets
Not every public contract is advertised as a one-off tender. Many councils and housing providers buy through frameworks, which are agreements with a group of pre-approved suppliers that run for several years. Once a framework is set up, work is often given to firms already on it without a new public advert. Under the Procurement Act 2023 there are also dynamic markets, which suppliers can join at any point while they are open. When you see a framework or dynamic market notice for your trade, it can be worth bidding even if no individual job is attached yet, because it is the gateway to work later on.
Quick checklist
- Register as a supplier on Find a Tender if you plan to bid directly in England, Wales or Northern Ireland.
- Check Public Contracts Scotland for Scottish work and Sell2Wales for Welsh work.
- Keep an eye on Contracts Finder for older and lower-value English notices.
- Always open the official notice and the full documents before deciding to bid.
- Note the clarification deadline as well as the submission deadline.
Ready to look? Start with tenders closing this week or pick your trade on the contracts page. If you are new to bidding, read how to win council tenders as a subcontractor.
This guide is general information, not legal advice. Always read the official notice and tender documents, and check current rules on GOV.UK.